


do me right and do me wrong (give it up, give it up)

by seashadows



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Angsty Crowley (Good Omens), Blow Jobs, Crowley Has a Praise Kink (Good Omens), Crying, Don't copy to another site, First Time, Frottage, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Loneliness, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Other, Pining, Praise Kink, Service Top Aziraphale (Good Omens), Touch-Starved, there's no tag for attention starvation so I'll put it here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 20:50:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20681738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashadows/pseuds/seashadows
Summary: Christ alive, Crowley thought,what’s wrong with me? He pays me the slightest bit of attention, and I soak it up like thirsty ground and beg for more.He was the desert outside Eden, crying out for a storm that never slaked him. He was swirling dust in a strong wind. He was the drought off the Nile, the locusts that ravaged the land.(Crowley copes with attention starvation, tries out some new hobbies, and discovers that asking for what you need is better than the alternative.)





	do me right and do me wrong (give it up, give it up)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the amazing [weatheredlaw](weatheredlaw.tumblr.com) for beta-reading. 
> 
> The title is from the Fratellis song "Told You So," the chorus of which is basically Crowley longing for Aziraphale.

The first time he received a commendation, Crowley smiled until his cheeks were sore.

Of course, commendations were thicker on the ground then, and easier to come by. Everything was new back in the days when he lived in the desert. There was no need for him to take credit for things he hadn’t done, as desperation would later drive him to do. Under the hot sun of the lands their inhabitants called Akkad and Canaan, it was easy enough for a snake to spread discord before slithering off to nap in a cool patch of sand. _Whose donkey was that, really? _he asked, ever so innocently, and _I think he might’ve poisoned the well. Shouldn’t you do something? _and _There’s no reason you should have to obey _that _law – you’re not a priest_, and they listened.

They _listened._

The rush of joy their smiles and cocked, curious heads created was a poison inside him, blooming in splotches as red as the bleeding tides of Kemet until it engulfed the whole of him – and faded.

Lucifer had listened once. And Crowley, or the being who would one day be known as Crowley, questioned.

Love, community, _grace _fell away from him, left up above as he fell into the flames, and oh, how he burned.

The pain had faded, but it wouldn’t be for millennia that he would understand why he felt like he was still burning. They were faded flames, not the hiss of boiling sulfur or the roar of the fire that sprang up around the deepest pit of hell where he landed. But they still hurt the same.

“Excellent job, demon Crawly,” Beelzebub said when he slithered back down to tell Hell of Adam and Eve’s expulsion. “Couldn’t have done it better myself.” Crowley smiled and smiled and _smiled_. Then his smiles faded away as everything else did in Hell, to a cold and dingy gray.

There were words for what he felt, but they were never quite right. Together they created feelings too complex to describe. He kept them close to his chest and let the bitterest one unfurl its roots deep in what he thought was once his heart:

_Loneliness._

* * *

Aziraphale was –

He was sweetness. Strength. He was balm in bloody Gilead.

He shone.

Through six thousand years, Crowley basked in him like a snake on a sun-warmed rock. He wasn’t quite sure why. There were no commendations from Aziraphale, of course. In theory, there was nothing he had to give that other angels couldn’t. He loved God’s creatures and performed miracles like they did. His sense of wonder was no different from what Crowley remembered in his dim memories of heaven. But, every so often, Crowley wondered if Aziraphale questioned, too.

Like Eve and Cain, Utnapishtim-called-Noah, Abraham, Yeshua, Arthur Pendragon and William Shakespeare and the woman who screamed and only stopped hitting him with her pomander when he said he was a _magic _snake who could help her achieve her every desire, Aziraphale listened.

Not only that, he asked. And when Crowley complied –

“_Crowley_,” Aziraphale would say, his eyes lighting up as bright as a cloudless day. Through the years and the centuries, until the next time they saw each other, that kept Crowley going through countless dark nights of whatever soul he had left. He could think about Aziraphale all he liked – his love of reading, the way he was so careful with his clothes, but careless with his hair, how he only had to look at him to make Crowley _want _– and build up his store of memories before they met again.

Then came the years of the Antichrist, and the Antichrist-who-wasn’t, and it all went to pot.

* * *

They were arguing behind the greenhouse again. Aziraphale clad in his ridiculous gardener outfit and Crowley looking a little worse for wear after Warlock’s latest sojourn into a mud puddle. Not that he hadn’t been pleased at Warlock’s manic splashing; but his skirt was unhappy with him.

And Aziraphale, apparently.

“This isn’t your lookout!” Aziraphale hissed furiously. Thank Satan, he’d at least dropped the stupid voice. Crowley had _been _to the West Country, and anyone from there would smack Aziraphale into next year for that accent. Probably while holding an antique rifle. Possibly _with _an antique rifle. “You’ve done enough damage screaming at my plants. How many times must I tell you to leave them to me?”

“Yes, and let them die,” Crowley shot back.

“Well – I –” Aziraphale flailed for words. Crowley would have said he saw the gears spinning in Aziraphale’s brain, but even the thought that he _had _a brain was too complimentary today. “You could at least be productive here!”

Crowley lowered his sunglasses and let Aziraphale see his eyes. The serpent in him was hissing to be let out. He allowed it all too gladly. Unfortunately, the serpent had never swayed the fucking Angel of the _Satan-fucking _Eastern Gate before, and it didn’t now. “You’re the one who said he wanted to be a gardener.”

“And this whole mess was _your idea_,” said Aziraphale with more venom than Crowley himself could ever produce.

The words bubbled up in his throat, hot acid, hot sulfur. _Fuck you, Side Whiskers. If you had an idea, you could’ve said something years ago. _Productive, his arse. “Fine,” he said. “I have an actual Antichrist to influence. Have fun mumbling cheesy nonsense to your plants, Brother Francis.”

He turned dramatically, and only semi-intentionally, on his heel without waiting to see if Aziraphale had any answer to that.

* * *

“Come up with _something_, or – or – or I’ll never talk to you again!”

_Or I’ll never talk to you again._

_Or I’ll never talk to you again._

_Gray walls and red-orange-blue-white fire and an empty black sky full of streaks of light that would have been stars if he weren’t falling, falling –_

Crowley threw his arms into the air with a wordless scream, a plea to time itself.

Inside him, his heart contracted as if squeezed by an unmerciful divine fist.

* * *

He was almost disappointed when Aziraphale’s bookshop rose from the semi-ashes of a not-quite-Apocalypse, and he hated himself for it. Especially when he knew that nothing else would have brought that same joy to Aziraphale’s face.

The _Just William _books, or at least Aziraphale’s reaction to them, kindled a mean spark of something he didn’t want to be schadenfreude in him all the same.

The words hid in his chest and threatened to rise to his lips every time he saw Aziraphale’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiled over a fresh cup of tea. Aziraphale put his hand over Crowley’s at the theater, and he almost said it. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was his old Achilles heel, the broken vial of poison filling him one more time.[1]

They were, of course, in the bookshop. “Look,” said Crowley, knocking his fingertips against his forehead, “all I’m trying to say is, do people _think _about it? They say they want the real thing, but when you get down to the molecules –”

“Are you sure they’re thinking about molecules?” Aziraphale asked. He looked puzzled. “I don’t know what they’re teaching in schools nowadays, but I doubt it’s anything to do with the specific…what is it? Crystal structure of their jewelry.”

“It’s not the crystal structure, angel.” Crowley rolled his eyes. Trust Aziraphale to go bounding off on a tangent after the slightest bit of knowledge. Harry the Rabbit in angel form, that was him. “No, I’m saying that you’ve got rubies and sapphires and diamonds, all that. Right? With me so far?” Aziraphale nodded, his eyes still confused. “So, they can grow those in a lab.”

“I still can’t quite believe that,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head. He lifted his plate from the table between them and took a sip of espresso, then a bite of his amaretto biscotti. “Mmm.” His eyes fluttered shut and he shivered in sinfully obvious delight. Crowley’s skin was suddenly a size too tight.

He cleared his throat. “Doesn’t matter if you believe it. It’s true. Anyway, they can grow these things in a lab and they still cost fuck-all, because price gouging is something humans invented. It’s more sadistic than anything we can come up with – I mean could, _they _could –” Was he even _of _Hell anymore? He thought of flames in Heaven, soot on the floor. “And they don’t have any slavery involved, so net positive, right?”

“I should say so.” Aziraphale was a picture of perturbation, in fact such a Platonic ideal of it that his portrait probably should have been in the dictionary next to the word. _Fuck my life_, Crowley thought. “I’ve never understood the human tendency towards…that.”

“That makes two of us.” Crowley reached for the tea that Aziraphale had pressed on him and took a huge gulp. It was stone-cold, because that was his luck. “But that’s not my point. My point is if you really think about it, a diamond that’s grown in a lab is no different than one you find in the ground.” He flung his hands out. “On the molecular level, they’re exactly the same. So even if you’re splitting hairs about cubic zirconia versus diamonds, you can’t argue with atoms. If people could only _see _that -”

“I wasn’t planning to argue,” Aziraphale said, and surveyed Crowley keenly over the rim of his cup. It was that look that had always made Crowley flush. Made him feel like Aziraphale could see beyond his soul, down to the atoms that had once been inchoate specks in the mind of the Almighty and had coalesced – for better or worse – into the entity called Crowley. “My dear boy,” he said, “there are times when I think you’re the smartest being I know.”

Crowley looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap. “The smartest demon, you mean.”

“No,” said Aziraphale. “Angel, demon, or human.” His eyes, when Crowley dared to look at them, were soft beyond normal capacity. “I mean that, Crowley.”

Crowley’s heart filled up and spilled over. He wanted to weep – he wanted to scream to the heavens – he wanted to let it all spill from his mouth, six thousand years overdue. _I love you. I love you, I love what you say to me, I love when you want to hear me. I love you and I want. I don’t know what I want. _God in Heaven, Satan in Hell, he couldn’t stop wanting.

He slammed his cup down on the table, sloshing tea over the sides in his haste to stand. “Sorry, angel, I – I can’t stay. I have stuff to do.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s face fell, and Crowley hated himself all the more for it. But if he stayed, he would embarrass himself. And worse –

_Or I’ll never talk to you again._

_Let me tempt you to…no, that’s your job, isn’t it?_

_You go too fast for me, Crowley._

There would be blank eyes and a hard-set face, and a rejection that cut all the more for how gentle it was.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Gotta go see a man about a dog,” Crowley said, and bolted like the cowardly snake he was.

* * *

He lay curled on the floor of his flat, heels of his hands ground so hard against his eyes that he saw orange and black starbursts.

_Christ alive_, Crowley thought, _what’s wrong with me? He pays me the slightest bit of attention, and I soak it up like thirsty ground and beg for more._

He was the desert outside Eden, crying out for a storm that never slaked him. He was swirling dust in a strong wind. He was the drought off the Nile, the locusts that ravaged the land.

In short, he was broken, and most of the good therapists were down where he was no longer welcome. 

Did Aziraphale still think he went too fast? Did Crowley even dare ask?

He knew what the answer was before he even vocalized it. The small, soft _no _trembled on his dry lips. His eyes prickled, but no tears came – he wasn’t sure he could make any now. “Better to have loved and lost,” he said, his voice echoing in the flat, and snorted. Bullshit. _Demonshit._

No, it was definitely better to take some time for himself and see if he couldn’t get rid of these yearnings once and for all. Figure himself out, like the humans said. If he was going to be on Earth for the foreseeable future, then why not make like he was in Rome and do as the Romans did? Or as the humans did.

He’d tear himself apart otherwise. He knew that much.

* * *

Crowley didn’t particularly want to drink anymore, so he did what the humans did when they felt guilty about their bad habits, and went to abuse his corporation – and possibly punch something – in a controlled environment.

The gyms all offered a free trial period. He chose one at random and miracled himself some workout clothes that resembled his usual ones, save for shorter sleeves and a slightly baggier fit. Black, of course; this wasn’t a New Year’s resolution.

The time of year meant that the gym was full of people trying to remain faithful to _their _resolutions, though, and he hadn’t forbidden himself from having any fun. Crowley smirked as he passed the juice bar, subtly miracling a couple of fliers that advertised a sale at the nearby pastry shop onto the nearest wall. They’d get some business, and people would commit a few sins, and his self-set job for the day would be done.

The actual exercise turned out to be something of a disappointment. Walking on the treadmill was boring, and he got far more lewd looks than he would have liked. The elliptical machines reminded him of treading water, so he tried the pool next and found it too full of children.

Then he turned into a snake and felt much, much better, even when someone called security. “What?” he drawled when three burly guards came in to answer the summons. “It’s not _that _big, is it?”

“Sir, we came about a snake…”

“Yeah, a snake in my lane. Do I look like a snake?” Crowley stretched luxuriously. “Seriously, guys.” He snapped the strap of his mirrored goggles.

After that, he left pretty quickly. Two minor demonic miracles ensured that he wouldn’t be noted as some kind of sardonic security threat, and that he would fly under the metaphorical[2] radar when he came back to try the punching bags.

Now that hit the spot, despite the smell of old sweat. Crowley spent a solid week punching things for three hours or so a day. Sometimes he punched and kicked with vigor, spinning in place and imagining various faces on the bags, and sometimes he just closed his eyes and let his knuckles scrape against the rough material.

Whenever he bled, he bandaged himself the human way. He wanted to feel the hurt whenever he clenched his hands into fists, see it whenever he raised them in front of his face. Knowing the scrapes were there made him feel…he didn’t know. Feel something.

The realization made him cut his sessions down to once a week.

* * *

The Internet told him that knitting and crocheting were soothing, so he made a trip to a yarn shop and bought them out of anything dark, saturated, or otherwise un-angelic. “Aren’t you a sweet boy!” exclaimed the shop owner when he went to the till. “You’ve paid my rent for the next month.” She was at least eighty years old, with hair gone almost all white and glasses on a chain around her neck. Her very presence radiated comfort, and Crowley cursed himself for not remembering _that _stereotypical detail about old-lady knitters.

He shrugged. “Not a problem,” he said. _It’s not a problem_, he would have said, if he thought he could control the hiss. “I needed yarn.”

“What’s it for, love?”

“I don’t know. Er, I don’t actually know…how to knit.” Something about the woman’s eyes compelled him to tell the truth. He’d never had a grandmother, but he imagined this was how he would act with one if he did. At least she hadn’t called him ‘dear.’

“You don’t know?” She honest-to-God held her hand against her chest and gasped. “Oh, I have such a treat for you. Come with me – I’ve got a knitting group meeting going on right this minute!”

“Wait, what?” He should have been able to stop her, he thought darkly as she pulled his arm and started towing him towards the back. He was a fucking demon. But he didn’t, or maybe he couldn’t, and before he knew it, he was in a room filled with women around the shop owner’s age. They all had knitting in their laps, and they were all looking at him. “Um. Hi.”

A thin woman sitting in a wheelchair dropped her knitting and clapped her hands. “Ooh, Joyce, who’s this?”

The owner – Joyce – reached up and squeezed his shoulder. “A very nice young fellow who’s just bought half my stock,” she said. She was exaggerating. Probably. “He doesn’t know how to knit, Shirley! Imagine that!”

“Doesn’t know how to knit?” most of the room gasped in tandem. Crowley wasn’t sure who did it, but he found himself pulled into a chair between a woman with an amazing Afro and what looked like a blanket in her lap, and another one with a pair of socks and hardly any hair at all. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” said Socks Lady. “I’m Barbara, and that’s Mary, and you’ve met Joyce, of course. Over there is Shirley, and next to her are Connie and Rachel. My sister Anne is by the door.”

Crowley looked around, unsure if this was an optical illusion and the harmless old ladies were really a roomful of sharks. He couldn’t remember anyone cheerfully manhandling him like this in ages. “Uh. I’m Crowley. Anthony Crowley. You can call me…Anthony. Or Crowley, whatever you want.”

“Crowley!” Blanket Lady – no, Mary – cooed. “What a pretty name! I’ll call you that if you don’t mind. I’ve a grandson named Anthony already.”

“That’s…fine? Oi, what’re you doing?” Barbara had his hands in hers.

“You have such pretty hands for knitting,” she said. “Now, remind me. You don’t know any of it at all? No technique? Not even knitting and purling?” He shook his head. “Oh, dear. Girls?”

Thus began the weirdest hour that Crowley had ever spent, and that included the first time he tried absinthe. By the time it ended, his fingers were actually sore, and he now owned four swatches that varied in quality from ‘abysmal’ to ‘eh.’[3] The ladies had migrated to a circle around him that reminded him uncomfortably of meetings in Hell. “That’s it, you’re getting it!” Rachel said, squeezing one of his swatches. For a second, Crowley glowed under the praise, but the feeling faded too quickly. _Not right_, he thought.

“Are you sure you don’t want a biscuit?” Anne poked him in the ribs with the platter. “Skinny thing like you, you’ll blow away if there’s a strong wind.”

Crowley looked down at the biscuits, which looked like most of their better days were behind them. Hardtack was more appealing. Ligur’s one attempt at cooking, back in the 1200s, was more appealing. “Um, no thanks. They look great. I just don’t eat much. Er – stomach issue.” He grimaced and patted his belly for verisimilitude.

“Irritable bowel syndrome?” Connie asked. “I’ve got a touch of it myself. Poor dear.”

Crowley took that as his cue to nope out of the rest of the conversation before things got too weird. And given his life thus far, he knew from ‘too weird.’ “Thank you for a fun time,” he said, “but I have things to do. Appointments, you know how it is.”

They let him go, but not without pressing so many packages of needles on him that he wondered if Joyce was trying to offset all the yarn he’d bought. Well, if she was, that was technically a victory for the demonic side.

When he got home, he unwrapped the needles and threw them all in a corner just for the satisfaction of hearing them clatter. Then he scooped them up and started a square on one size nine and one size ten, because why the heaven not?

He missed Aziraphale. Hell, Aziraphale would have loved this. And here Crowley was, playing with yarn like a sad-sack instead of picking up the phone and sharing something with him.

There really was a screw loose in his head. No, not a screw, a spring, with something pressing down and down and _down _until it let up and snapped. Or, he thought with some of the optimism that had gotten him through the centuries, maybe it would pop back up gently if the pressure came off slowly enough.

A realization was fermenting in there, some conclusion, but his brain was as tangled as the yarn and he couldn’t think through thoughts of springs and Aziraphale, all entwined. God, his metaphors were shit.

* * *

The one thing he couldn’t keep himself from doing was wanking himself into a jelly a few times a week. Whether it was healthy or unhealthy, God, he _needed_, and no amount of silky yarn on his fingers or knuckles on a bag or nights trying stand-up comedy[4] would change what his body demanded of him. He could shift parts of that body, sculpt them into whatever pleased him, and still his thoughts would work him into a frenzy. Grab his attention and refuse to let go until he’d obeyed his own call.

At those times, his mind careened wildly between considering the act self-abuse and considering it self-love. Either way, he always put on the most romantic music he knew[5], settled himself into bed – save for the one time he couldn’t help it and had a fap in his office – and imagined Aziraphale’s soft hands caressing him all over.

_Isn’t that wonderful_, he thought sourly after one particular night, during which he came six times and walked like a terminal syphilis patient when he got up to stretch his legs. Six thousand years’ worth of fantasies at his disposal, and he went for the soppy ones that could have come out of a damn romance novel. Some demon he was.

It wasn’t even that he got so bloody hard, or wet, or whatever his body wanted to throw at him. Crowley could have dealt with that. Could have banished blind lust by masturbating a few times and getting it over with.

This wasn’t lust. He _knew _lust. Lustful wanking and lustful feelings were all well and good, but he didn’t feel warm when he was just sinning for the heaven of it. Not like this.

Aziraphale made him feel. He made him warm. He made him _smile_.

Crowley missed smiling.

* * *

“Freeze!”

“…oh, shit. Come on, does it really have to be you again? Last time, you completely ruined the scene.”

“Now is that any way for an ice cream seller to talk to his customers? Let’s see, I want a blood sundae.”

“You mean strawberry, right?”

“Strawberry and blood.”

Crowley was unanimously asked not to return to the improv workshop.

* * *

Looking up advice on the Internet only made him feel like even more of a shit. A _needy _shit, no less, which he’d never realized was a sin equal to greed and pride. Well, you learned something new every day.

Weeks passed and Aziraphale didn’t call.

Crowley felt himself growing frayed at the edges, a knot of rope left in the weather too long. His knitting was no good. He would have left the yarn in an unused corner of the flat and cursed his clumsy fucking fingers, save for the memory of Joyce’s happiness at his purchase and the thought of Aziraphale’s eyes lighting up if he ever managed to actually make him something.

The Internet also provided plant blogs, which he eagerly devoured when he got around to turning on his computer. But even those were only a small comfort.

He throbbed around the loss of Aziraphale like a missing limb, one that he’d torn out himself. Cut off his nose to spite his face. He could function without him, sure. Aziraphale not calling didn’t preclude him from punching a bag or typing out a long comment on someone’s blog about how if they kept raising their spider plant on tap water, then the droopiness was their own fault. It didn’t keep him from going to comedy clubs and heckling people.[6]

But no amount of reading about how to be a good friend, or any similar bollocks, could keep him from missing the only being who knew him literally inside, outside, upside down, and in his sleep.

Two months. The leaves turned red and yellow, and then brown and crisp against the graying skies.

Crowley’s fingers stilled in the middle of what was supposed to be a scarf. “I love him,” he told his quiet flat, softly, hesitantly. “I love him.” Louder. “I love him.”

He called it out, he shouted, he screamed into the void. When the void gave no answer, he quietly – so quietly – cried it.

* * *

In November, on a day that was dreadfully dreary, but ordinary by British standards, someone knocked on Crowley’s door.

Crowley roused himself from a couch nap that had induced a surprisingly pleasant dream about ice cream and went to answer it. Maybe one of his neighbors was checking to see if he’d died again. It was always fun to see them scream and jump when he showed them he wasn’t actually decomposing somewhere.

“Still haven’t been nicked by the Grim Reaper,” he said, swinging the door open with a careless flick of a wrist, “so you’d better not be thinking about stealing my –”

“Crowley?”

Crowley took a step back. He’d dreamed this a dozen times, but his dreams never included a box in Aziraphale’s hand or that concerned crinkle around the corners of his eyes. “Angel,” he said. “Do you – need something?”

Aziraphale looked down at the box, which was embossed with some fancy bakery label. “I hope I’m not intruding,” he said. “I know how much you like your space. I only wanted to see if you’re all right.” He thrust the box forward. “The bakery near the bookshop has recently begun to experiment with an excellent dark-chocolate cake. I thought you might enjoy it.”

“I, uh.” Crowley’s throat tightened. Dark chocolate. He’d told Aziraphale once that he liked his chocolate as dark as his humor – once, while smack in the middle of so much wine that he made a “your mother” joke and Aziraphale actually laughed[7]. How had he remembered? Crowley barely remembered anything from that night apart from Aziraphale’s giggles. “Thanks, Aziraphale. I’ll give it a go.”

“Wonderful.” Aziraphale smiled at him and gave a tight little nod. “I’d best leave you to whatever you’re doing, hadn’t I? I do hope you like the cake.”

“Aziraphale.” The name spilled out of Crowley’s mouth before he could bite his tongue. “You’re leaving?”

Aziraphale turned back to him, looking confused. “To give you your space, of course. I didn’t want to push you." 

Push him? _You go too fast for me, Crowley. _“Don’t go,” he said. “I mean…come in. Please.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s face broke into a true smile. Crowley’s heart was suddenly so much black goo. “Are you sure? I’d certainly like to see you again.”

“Um. Yeah. I’m sure, so…” Crowley flailed his arm vaguely in the direction of his flat. “Sit down. I’ll get us tea.” He wasn’t sure if he had any, but by Satan, there _would _be some in his kitchen by the time he got there. “How have you been?”

“Rather well,” Aziraphale said. Crowley looked back and caught him peeking around as he led him through the flat, like he’d never seen it before. Which was ridiculous, given that they’d slept in the same bed just a few months back. “I’ve sorted the new books Adam left. I wouldn’t ordinarily say this about anyone, but that child has questionable taste in literature.”

Crowley indicated the couch. “I think most kids do. You want to sit?”

Aziraphale sat down and almost immediately jumped back up with a little noise of surprise. “Something wrong?” Crowley asked. This was the moment when Aziraphale announced that he’d come to his senses and would be leaving after all. He’d use that prim expression and he’d break Crowley’s heart, and Crowley knew he’d fucking _let _him, because this was Aziraphale and he – he was himself in the best and worst of ways.

“I’m fine, I’ve only sat on something.” Aziraphale poked around between the couch cushions and came up with Crowley’s latest semi-abandoned project. “Crowley! Have you taken up knitting? You never told me!” He held up the yarn mess and beamed, and a tiny hairline crack formed the fragile composure holding Crowley together. “This is a beautiful color. I like how soft your yarn is.”

“Demon-red,” said Crowley automatically, before taking hold of himself. “Yeah, thought I’d try it. No, don’t –” But Aziraphale was already tilting the needles back and forth, looking at them like a scientist with a particularly fascinating specimen. “It’s terrible. I know it is. I only learned a few weeks ago.” _Stop_, the uncomfortably Morningstar-like voice in his head hissed. A dragon bent on destruction, not a snake. _He hears your babbling. Don’t make it worse for yourself, Crawly._

_Or I’ll never talk to you again_, he heard in a different voice entirely. _Or I’ll never –_

“But it’s lovely!” Aziraphale stroked the ocular abortion that was his attempt at a project. “The yarn is so high-quality. Look how clever you are, Crowley, taking up handicrafts in this weather. Goodness knows,” he added, pinching the knitting between his ever-groomed fingertips, “I was never so meticulous when I tried to learn.”

Crowley squeezed his hands into fists and clenched his teeth as the fingernail he’d accidentally broken at his last gym session dug into his palm. It didn’t hurt as much as the stinging in his eyes. _Melodramatic berk_, he thought, but not even his usual type of self-deprecation was enough to stave off the treacherous feeling. For fuck’s sake. “Angel, it’s not – I’m not –”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened as he looked at him. “Crowley, whatever is the matter?” He put the knitting down and wrung his hands. “Was I too forward? Oh, no – my dear boy, I only wanted to give you a compliment.”

It was the last word that did him in, the straw that broke the unlucky camel’s back. Crowley gritted his teeth and covered his face with one hand, letting his head hang as the tears came. _Get out, please, get out_, he wanted to say, but then Aziraphale would, and he’d be alone. “Aziraphale,” he said in the still, small voice that broke Abraham all those millennia ago. Demonic, not divine – there was the difference. That made all the difference. “P-please – go…”

“No,” said Aziraphale. “Oh, Crowley, no – what’s wrong? Please tell me.” Crowley felt an arm wrap hesitantly around his hunched shoulders, the other steadying him with gentle pressure on his left side. “Did I say something wrong? I’ll leave if you need me to. I will.” His voice was concerned, somewhere between authoritative and comforting, and perfect in all the wrong ways.

“Don’t go.” _Go, please, I’m wrong, this is wrong, I’m a terrible friend and a worse demon and you don’t need me like I need you. Go. _“Please,” he said, unsure if he was begging for the relief that his thoughts tempted him with, or the comfort that he craved so badly it prickled his skin.

Aziraphale began to rub open-palmed circles over his upper back. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Let me sit you down, my dear. May I do that?” Crowley nodded helplessly, and then felt himself being guided to sit on the couch. The cushions dipped under Aziraphale’s weight next to him. God in Heaven, Satan in Hell, random fluctuations in the time-space continuum, he wasn’t leaving. “Has something happened? Are you hurt?”

Crowley shook his head, his breath coming in tiny, pained hisses through his teeth. “I’m…fine.” His shoulders shook in a fight against his tight throat and chest, his watering eyes. “Not hurt. Don’t w-worry –” He took frantic, erratic gulps of air in a desperate attempt to swallow his throat open.

“Crowley. _Crowley _– shh, shhh, it’s all right.” Aziraphale was gentling him, Crowley realized, gentling him like he’d seen him do for a mule that dug in its heels and refused to go on to the next oasis. “Don’t try to hold back. It’s healthy to cry. Please, dear, you’re going to make yourself sick.” His voice almost throbbed with tenderness and concern, and in the hand on his back, Crowley would have sworn that he felt Heavenly grace. “Breathe for me. In and out.”

Crowley coughed and sucked in air, taking a long breath that smelled of Aziraphale’s cologne. It gave him something to cling to. He took a second breath, a third. “Angel?”

“There now,” Aziraphale soothed, “it’s all right. Everything will be all right. Let it out – hold on to me if you’d – _oof!_” Crowley had his arms around him, face buried in his chest, before he’d finished the sentence. A flicker of guilt flared briefly in his head, but Aziraphale’s warmth, and the hand that he twined through Crowley’s hair after a moment’s pause, put it out just a little less than adequately.

The sob threatening to rip its way out of Crowley’s chest finally left him. Tears soaked into Aziraphale’s shirt and waistcoat. Fuck, Aziraphale didn’t need to invoke an angelic dry-cleaning miracle on top of everything else Crowley was putting him through. He tried to pull away, only for Aziraphale to hold him firmly in place. “No,” Aziraphale said as he squeezed gently at the nape of Crowley’s neck. “Cry it all out. Don’t worry about getting me wet, darling boy. I assure you, I’m quite waterproof.”

Crowley nearly choked on a sudden hiccupping laugh, which only made him cry all the harder. _Darling boy. _If those affectionate names were a well of sweet water, he could drink until he burst and still not be satisfied. He would wait in the sun until he shattered to pieces and blew away in the _khamsin _for another taste. “Aziraphale…” He sniffled and buried his face deeper, seeking warmth against his swollen eyes.

“Hush,” Aziraphale said. “I can see you’re still upset. Rest your voice now. I’ve got you.”

So Crowley held fast and let go, sinking into Aziraphale’s warm comfort as his snake form sought the sun. Aziraphale held him tightly all through it, rocked him back and forth. Crooned something every few minutes into Crowley’s ear. “There, there,” he said, and “Poor thing,” and “Don’t fret, I’m here.”

He never told him to stop, though. He never told Crowley to pick himself up and move on. _She _would, no doubt. The higher-ups of Hell would have, if he’d ever been stupid enough to give them the opportunity. Aziraphale’s patience with him never ran dry, though he shook and wept for what felt like forever.

The fire in his face finally burned down to a smolder, and the tears clouding his vision stayed trembling in his eyes rather than trailing down his cheeks. Crowley shook a few times, gentle aftershocks, and loosened his grip despite his dread of this very moment. “’m’sorry.”

“What in the world for? You haven’t a single blessed reason to be sorry.”

Crowley unhooked his arms from their grip – trapping, demanding, _greedy_ – around Aziraphale’s waist. _Being me_, he wanted to say. _For pulling off my skin and cutting myself into raw strips in your lap. _“For getting you wet,” he said.

“Oh. Is that what has you so concerned?” Aziraphale snapped his fingers and the wet blotches on his clothing disappeared. “I’m the one who ought to be sorry. For goodness’ sake, dear, I made you cry.” He returned his hand to the tender space between Crowley’s shoulder blades – the space between his wings. “Won’t you tell me what I did wrong? Do you need me to leave?”

Somewhere in Crowley’s torso, his stomach slammed into his lungs. “You might as well!” he shouted, and threw off Aziraphale’s hand. If he was offering, that meant he wanted to, and that meant Crowley was fucked. He was _nothing_. “You don’t want to be here. You can’t.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale reared back. Shock and indignation warred in his soft face. “You don’t mean that! There’s no need to speak to me so.”

“Go away,” Crowley said, “fucking go away, because –” Two months of other people’s looks, two months of long nights online, two months of chatter around him while he had nothing to say flashed before his narrowed eyes. “Because Satan forbid I tell you the truth and be manipulative, even though I’m a fucking _demon _and that’s what I do, I’ve been manipulating human nature for six thousand years!” The words barreled out of him, cramping his stomach, compressing him into a rictus of agony.

“I – when did I ever –” Aziraphale held his hands in a shield before him. “Where is all of this coming from? Where in the world is _any _of this coming from, Crowley?”

Crowley lurched to his feet. The room swayed around him, but he kept his footing, thank Satan. “You didn’t ring,” he said, “two _months _I’ve waited for you, and you can’t – y-you can’t – you can’t say those things, you can’t fucking compliment me when I need it so much! I need _you _so much, angel, I miss you so much it’s ripping me apart.” Ragged breaths. Hands burning – no, _all_ of him burning as he fell down, down, down. oh, how he burned. _Or I’ll never talk to you again. _“No one ever says that stuff to me like you. Those compliments. It’s never good enough, but with…with you, I’m not…good enough. I need more, angel. I need more than you can give.” His chest felt scraped-out, empty.

Aziraphale’s mouth fell open. “More than I…? Crowley, what…whatever do you mean?”

If he was going to lose him, then he would do it with style. “I love you.” It seared him like Her to finally say it. “I don’t _just _love you. I need you to say…things. Good things. It’s never the same when other people do it. Not like I hear it much from them anyway.” There it was again, the loneliness and the not-quite-loneliness that had bloomed so long in the chambers of his heart. He’d spoken what had to be millions and millions, if not billions, of words over the centuries and he still couldn’t identify this one.

“Crowley…”

“No, stop. Shut up.” Crowley’s eyes prickled again. He scrubbed them hard with the back of his hand. Aziraphale had already dealt with him crying once. If he made Aziraphale deal with it again, he’d be lower than scum. “I’m bollocksed up in the head. I know that already. That’s why I didn’t ring you or anything. I didn’t want my space – I wanted you.”

Aziraphale stared at him.

Crowley felt his form flickering, the edges of his very being wavering between snake and demon. Between snake and shame. _You will crawl on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life, _She once told him. He’d quailed under Her censure, the worst he felt since the Fall. This was…was this worse? It had to be. “Angel, I –”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No.”

“Just leave me –”

“Never.” Aziraphale stood, strode towards him, and took Crowley’s face in his hands. “Crowley. My dear, why didn’t you say something?” His eyes shone, and his sweet breath puffed into Crowley’s face. “You blessed, stubborn thing!” Then his lips were on Crowley’s hard enough to bruise.

“Angel,” Crowley tried to say, but the word came out as _mmmm _against Aziraphale’s hungry, questing mouth. Aziraphale’s hand cupped the back of his head, almost the same touch as before but enough now to make sparks fly through Crowley’s brain, and probed at his lips with his tongue. Crowley gladly opened his mouth and let him in. _Oh, God, Satan, it’s been so long. _He wanted Aziraphale. He needed.

But he needed –

He pulled back far enough to see Aziraphale clearly. “Tell me why,” he begged. “I need to hear why.”

Aziraphale panted. “Why…why what?” he asked. His cheeks were red as the apple of Crowley’s undoing; his eyes twinkled brighter than the faraway stars and galaxies beyond the heavens.

“Why you love me,” Crowley said. His body was a flame beneath his clothes, fever-bright. “What you like. Please, angel.”

Aziraphale licked his lips. “No one has ever told you that, have they?” he said slowly. “You’ve been left to fend for yourself all these years. Ever since you first…oh, _Crowley_.” His lower lip trembled. If a black void had opened beneath Crowley to swallow him, in that moment, he would have welcomed it. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I should have rung you.”

“Why didn’t you?” Crowley rasped. “I mean, you didn’t have to, but –”

“I should have,” said Aziraphale fiercely. “You mean so much to me, Crowley. You must believe me. I ought to have at least rung.” He drew Crowley close with a hand on the small of his back. “You say that you need to hear these things from me? Compliments?”

Crowley added a couple of crocodiles with poisonous fangs to the imaginary void. “I don’t _need _it, exactly.”

“You do.” They were chest to chest, nose to nose, but with no ex-hospital wall to make the position any less than intimate. “It’s no sin to need something.”

“Greed?” Crowley offered. “Pride? Lust?”

“But you’re not greedy,” said Aziraphale. “You’re hurting.”

Crowley tried to look down at his feet. “I’m scarred,” he said. “I’m fucked in the head. You don’t want that.”

“I do! Damn – bless – for the love of all things good, what must I do to convince you? What must I say?” Aziraphale pulled him in gently, one last time, and then they were flush against each other, Crowley’s nose almost nestled in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck. He could feel the tiny movements as Aziraphale breathed. “Whatever you’d like to hear, I’ll say. You’re not manipulating me, I promise. I want to make you happy.” Aziraphale’s chest shuddered. “I’ll compliment you for the rest of time. Goodness knows there’s enough to compliment.”

Crowley clung to him and shook.[8] “There isn’t.”

“There is,” said Aziraphale, tracing a finger around the edge of Crowley’s ear like it was something precious. “I told you once that you’re the cleverest person I know, didn’t I?” Crowley whimpered. “I know I did. It’s true – you are. You’re the cleverest, most intelligent, _brightest _being I know. You shine, Crowley.”

He would fly apart if this continued, but he couldn’t bear for it to stop. “Why do you love me?” he whispered into Aziraphale’s neck. Goosebumps rose beneath his lips, wherever his breath landed. “Can you…tell me why?”

“Your heart,” Aziraphale said, and ducked his head, pressing kisses along Crowley’s jawline. “Your soul. I know it’s there. Your kindness. If I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t think it possible to combine a love of humanity with a demonic nature, but you’ve done it, you…you loveliest of wonders.”

“More,” Crowley said. “Please, more.”

“I have so much more.” Aziraphale ran his hands down Crowley’s back and rested them, ever so lightly, on Crowley’s arse. “You insist on paying when I take you to the Ritz.” If Crowley weren’t so busy trying to keep his insides from exploding, he would have laughed. Aziraphale was groping him and talking about the Ritz. How quintessentially Aziraphale. “Your hair could be made of flames. You have the most beautiful plants in the world. You’re so curious! Good gracious, crafting – I never would have expected it of you.”

Crowley pressed backwards into Aziraphale’s hands. “Angel…”

“I would very much like,” said Aziraphale, squeezing just enough that Crowley moaned, “to take you to bed, dearheart. May I? Do you feel…up to that?” He didn’t pull back, but Crowley sensed his hesitation nevertheless. “You’re vulnerable right now. If you don’t want that, I won’t say another word on the subject today.”

Fuck, how was that even a question? “Please. Yes, please, take me to bed.” Crowley’s body hummed with sudden arousal and he plastered himself against Aziraphale, wishing that he could wrap his limbs around him and never let go. “Fuck me, angel.”

Aziraphale kissed the tender place just behind Crowley’s ear. “I would rather make love to you, my dear.”

If arousal was a tingling hum, then this feeling, whatever it was, filled him with light. He rose to his tiptoes with it, cried out, nearly glowed. _My cup runneth over_, Crowley thought nonsensically. Not Heavenly light, nothing that could hurt him, but Aziraphale’s light. Warmth suffused him even to the tips of his fingers and toes. “Please, Aziraphale.”

“Nothing would please me more,” Aziraphale said. “I promise you, Crowley.”

Crowley wasn’t sure how they got to his bedroom, only that he was on the bed, naked to the waist with Aziraphale next to him. “Oh, dear,” said Aziraphale. “I suppose I got a bit carried away with that miracle.”

“No!” Crowley shook his head against the pillow hard enough to make himself dizzy. “Not too much, just, _ngk_, come here. Please, please, please.” He held out his arms. “Kiss me, angel. Please.”

“On top of you? Won’t I be too heavy?” Aziraphale’s forehead crinkled in concern. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Couldn’t hurt me.” Between his spinning head and the rising heaviness of arousal between his legs, speaking felt like he was trying to force the words out through a too-long tunnel. But by Satan, he was trying. “Love you too much.”

Aziraphale made a strangled noise and blinked. “Oh, don’t make me cry,” he said, but climbed carefully on top of Crowley as if he were made of sand, ready to collapse at the slightest hint of _too much. _“I love you, Crowley. My dear, my sweetheart.” The sweet weight of him felt so good, even partly braced on his knees. Crowley would take what he could get. “I should have kissed you years ago.” Then he lowered his head and did just that.

_Don’t stop, _Crowley thought rather than pull away and say it, _don’t stop don’tstopdon’tstop – _Aziraphale’s warm mouth was everything he needed, and everything he hadn’t known he needed. He moaned and wiggled, serpentine, to give his nipples some friction against the smooth-rough fabric of Aziraphale’s clothing. They hardened to tiny, sensitive points so fast it hurt. All the while, he opened his mouth to Aziraphale, his soft lips and curious tongue, even the smooth edges of his teeth when he darted his own tongue into Aziraphale’s mouth. He tasted intensely of what could only be described as himself, just this side of human.

Forget possession. Crowley was going to explode right here and now, just from some kissing.

Aziraphale skimmed his hands down Crowley’s bare sides. “Look at you,” he said. Crowley whimpered at the loss of his lips, but the words, oh, God, those words. They filled him. “You’re so pink and lovely. I want to see the rest of you.”

“_Hngh_ –” Crowley scrambled away and fumbled at his trousers and pants with fingers that took a minor miracle to stop shaking. He finally got them down over his hips, pulling off his socks for good measure, and threw everything into a pile on the floor. He had no idea what Aziraphale had done with his other clothes and he didn’t care. “Yeah,” he said breathlessly. “Look at me. You want to, right?”

Aziraphale nodded. “Look at you,” he repeated. The energy that filled Crowley was a brimming cup; this was a flood washing through his flat. Aziraphale gazed at him in clear wonder, his eyes shining and his lips parted just enough to reveal everywhere Crowley had kissed. “You’re so beautiful. You’re _mine, _Crowley.” The light in his eyes dimmed just a touch. “Are you mine?”

“Yours, yours, yours.” Crowley threw himself towards him with all that he had. “Tell me. Do whatever you want, but God, tell me!”

Aziraphale caught him just before his head could smash against the wall and folded him into his arms. “By all that’s holy,” he said, sending a spark down Crowley’s spine. Aziraphale had never blasphemed for him before. “You’re sinuous as a snake. Donatello might have sculpted you, my love.” Crowley rubbed against him, heat washing over him anew. “Goodness.” Aziraphale’s hands found his arse again. “Give me something to touch. I want to make you feel good, Crowley. I want to drink you in.”

Crowley lifted his head, which – demonic as it was – could come up with a thousand ideas just from those last three words. “Drink…drink me in? You mean…?”

Aziraphale’s pupils expanded, pushing the color to the edge. “If you’d like.”

“It tastes weird,” Crowley blurted out, the only thing that he could think to say. “Might be weirder for you, since I’m a demon.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Aziraphale said. “Do I look like I don’t want to?”

“You look like you want to jump me.”

Aziraphale laughed, a pealing bell. “_You _look debauched,” he said, “and I haven’t even done anything to you yet.”

Crowley smirked a challenge at him, feeling for the first time that day like they were on some semblance of even footing. “Then drink me in,” he said.

“Gladly,” said Aziraphale, and claimed Crowley’s lips again. All too soon, he released them, only to lay Crowley on his back and begin kissing his way down his body. “Mmm,” he said against Crowley’s breastbone, “how are these?” He rested a fingertip on each nipple. “Do they like to be touched?”

Crowley groaned. “Don’t say that. They don’t think.”

“But they’re beautiful,” said Aziraphale, running a thumb around Crowley’s right nipple until it was so hard it hurt. “They crinkle so prettily for me.”

Crowley threw an arm over his face. This was so much, almost too much. Aziraphale’s voice he could handle, but not the sight of him _touching _the same bits he praised. “Oh, God.”

“I’m sorry, dear.” Aziraphale took his hands off his chest. “Would you prefer I not do that?”

Crowley shook his head. “No! I mean, yes, keep going. Just – it – hearing you say those things…it feels so good. Too good.”

“Ah,” said Aziraphale. “I’m sorry, I really mustn’t tease you. Everything that I’ve touched really is beautiful. Can you look at me?” Crowley gingerly lifted his arm away and found Aziraphale smiling at him. “I’ve dreamed of being able to do this to you,” he said. “I didn’t look when I was in your body, you know.”

“I didn’t in yours,” Crowley admitted. “Wanted to, but I didn’t.” The sweat on his skin had begun to dry, cooling him a little. “Keep going. Please, I want to feel you.”

Aziraphale briefly closed his eyes, holding a hand against his mouth. “Oh, you’re going to _end _me, saying things like that,” he said, no bite in the words.

“Then take off your clothes,” Crowley said. “I want to see you, too.”

Aziraphale’s hands went to the buttons of his waistcoat. “Are you sure?”

“Fuck, angel, _yes_. You know how many times I’ve wanted to see you bare-arse naked?” Crowley’s cock – and it was definitely a cock now, a quickly-filling one, not a nebulous shadow of a future Effort – twitched at the memory of all the times he’d dirtied himself thinking about Aziraphale’s body.

“Ah.” Aziraphale’s cheeks colored. “Well, all right, but I’m still going to lavish you with attention.” He started to unbutton, and Crowley watched him hungrily. “You’re becoming aroused, dear. It’s very appealing.”

Crowley thonked his head back against the pillow and let his hips lift, thrusting ever-so-slightly into the air. It was far from the touch he craved. “Always, angel. I’ve been having off like mad, thinking about you.”

“Having…oh!” Aziraphale gave a little gasp. “I should confess, I’ve been doing the same.”

For a second, Crowley didn’t realize that the incoherent noise he heard had actually come from his throat. “_Angel_.”

“Well, I have.” Aziraphale miracled open his vest and shirt, then set them aside. “I thought it was terribly shameful, wanting to see you writhe beneath me. But that’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it?”

“Some…sometimes.” His field of vision throbbed, a sure sign that his eyes were transforming into full-on creepy snake mode. “Sometimes I imagine us rubbing, or you – you’ve got a cunt, not a cock, so I touch it for you. Or you touch mine. Or we fuck each other.”

Aziraphale got to work on his trousers, his hands deceptively steady. Only the pinkening of his neck betrayed him. “You want to make me hard for you,” he said. His voice dipped low, thick as honey, enough to make Crowley’s eyes nearly cross with want. “You want to make me wet. I’ve gotten wonderfully wet for you before. I’m sure you have over me, haven’t you?” Crowley nodded. “Goodness me. Look how hard you are now.”

“Your fault,” Crowley said, and looked down the length of his body to where he stood nearly straight up. “’s’all for you.” He wouldn’t pretend that he hadn’t done this kind of thing before, and undoubtedly Aziraphale would be absolutely unsurprised if he told him, but when he touched himself, it was to the thought of kind eyes and – sometimes – soft wings.

Aziraphale got his trousers off, did away with his pants, and settled down between Crowley’s spread legs. “You really are stunning,” he said. “Striking, really. I wish I could look at you in public as other people do.” He put his hands on Crowley’s hips and fanned his fingers out. “There’s not a wasted line on you. Clean and spare.”

“Skinny,” Crowley countered, and lifted his hips. Aziraphale’s face was scant centimeters away from his cock, which pulsed with every heartbeat. “You want – _ohfuck_.” He shivered as a drop of pre-come beaded up at the head of his cock and slid ticklishly down the shaft. “A_aaangel_,” he whined. “Please.”

Aziraphale was apparently not enough of a bastard to leave him hanging this time[9]. “I stand corrected,” he said, and licked his way up the wet trail with the very tip of his tongue. “You’re hard _and _wet for me. What a compliment! I should compliment you in return.” He sucked the head of Crowley’s cock into his mouth, tonguing at the foreskin. “Mmm,” he sighed, and pulled away until the tip rested just on his bottom lip. “You taste delectable.”

Crowley forgot how to breathe for a second. In that second, Aziraphale opened his beautiful mouth and pulled him in halfway, and started to lick swirls around his cock that would rival the serpent on Asklepios’s fucking staff. “Ghh,” he said. Aziraphale hooked his arms under Crowley’s thighs and bent his neck, and then – then Crowley’s cock was fully inside his mouth, sheathed in heat, drawn in by a tightening pull.

His eyes slammed shut. “Tell me,” he said, strained and nonsensical, but Aziraphale hummed and sucked him even more enthusiastically. He let go of one thigh to cup Crowley’s bollocks in his palm, stroking and playing with them until Crowley felt them crinkle and tighten. _I’m telling you, _Crowley heard in every touch. Heard it as Aziraphale stroked his thighs with shaking palms. _This is how I love you._

Or maybe he was going insane.

Aziraphale rested a warm, steadying hand on his belly and licked him rhythmically, nudging him towards the climax that Crowley could feel building. _Angel_, he thought. “Nn_hhh_,” he said, and grabbed helplessly at Aziraphale’s hair. “Don’tstopdon’t_stop_therethere_there!_”

He boiled over. He bloomed outwards, seeking the sun, a sped-up flower growing. He gave his offering to a god greater and smaller than the one he’d known, and Aziraphale drank him down.

“That was wonderful,” Aziraphale said. His hand was still on Crowley’s belly, and Crowley was glad for its presence. “You come so beautifully, dearest.”

Crowley’s cock gave another erection the old college try, and decided that it was better suited for secondary school. He squinted at Aziraphale, letting his image waver through his lashes. It was easier than looking at him head-on, somehow. “Hold me?” He immediately regretted saying it, saying something that sliced away even his essential demonic nature after everything he’d put Aziraphale through today. “Sorry.”

Aziraphale answered him by wiggling upwards on his belly, snakelike yet not, and wrapping himself around Crowley. “As I said before, love,” he said, “you haven’t a thing to be sorry for.” He rubbed his face against Crowley’s neck. “You’re giving off heat like a furnace. I’ll take advantage, if you don’t mind.”

“_Hg_,” said Crowley, so full of compliments that he felt scrubbed through with them. This wasn’t poison, he realized, not from Aziraphale. It lingered even in his fingertips and curling toes rather than fading away, rather than leaving him cold. “Aziraphale…”

“Mm?”

Crowley swallowed until he felt the apple of his throat bob convulsively in place. “I said I love you. Right? I do.”

“Yes, you did.” Aziraphale levered himself up on an elbow. His hair was well past messed up; it suited him surprisingly well. “And I love you.” He cleared his throat. “Could I – please, if you don’t mind, I…” He sauntered a hand vaguely downwards. “If you don’t want to, I’m perfectly happy to, er, touch my own – but I don’t want to do it if it’s not all right with you.” His face went pink. “It’s only that you’ve had a tremendous effect on me.”

“Whoo-_eee_,” said Crowley, for lack of anything that better described his gobsmacked state. “You’re in my bed, you’ve just blown my mind _and _my cock, and you don’t think I want to touch you?”

Aziraphale giggled. “Oh. Well, then – it’s your choice, my dear. Dealer’s choice, isn’t that the phrase? I’m at your disposal.”

Crowley’s cock went ahead and earned its degree, filling quickly – so quickly, in fact, that he thought he felt a sudden drop in blood pressure. “I want to rub off with you.” He wanted to do _everything_ with him, but Aziraphale on top to him as they rubbed chest to chest, knees to knees, cock to cock sounded the best right now.[10] “Can you get on top again?”

Aziraphale shivered and gave a moan that bubbled up from deep inside. “Oh, _yes_. Now?”

“Yeah, um – wait –” Crowley had enough experience to know that doing this dry would be a bad fucking idea, no matter how long the wait or how much he wanted to thrust himself into oblivion. “Lube?”

Aziraphale snapped his fingers and a tube appeared. Crowley could have done without the label that said ‘Heavenly Nectar,[11]’ but he was more relieved that he didn’t have to explain what lube was. “I want this, too,” Aziraphale said. His eyes were almost all pupil, possibly the sexiest thing Crowley had ever seen. “I’ll take such good care of you.”

He got on top again and immediately kissed Crowley. Now – _now _he wasn’t gentle. His mouth was desperate and hungry, and Crowley eagerly returned every kiss as Aziraphale adjusted their bodies to just the right position. Their cocks met and _oh_, Crowley didn’t even try to hold back the inhuman noise he made. What was even the point when he had Aziraphale on top of him, warm and weighty, comfort itself?

Aziraphale reached between them, fumbled, and wrapped a slippery hand around their erections. Crowley threw his head back and cried out to Whoever would hear. “Feels ssso good – Aziraphale – yeah, _there_.”

Kisses rained down on Crowley’s face, mouth and eyes, nose, lingering on his forehead and cheeks as Aziraphale set a pace and pressure that would be punishing if they were human. But they weren’t, and so Crowley hooked a leg around Aziraphale’s soft thighs to press them even closer together. Aziraphale’s chest and belly pressed against Crowley’s; he could feel every sparse hair, how slick with sweat everything was. “Ah,” Aziraphale panted, “yes, yes! So good, feels so good -”

Crowley clung even closer. If they were in their true forms, ethereal and insubstantial – but then, no, they wouldn’t be able to _feel _like this. He couldn’t meld with Aziraphale this way, but it was the next best thing. He trembled, feeling the tight warning of another orgasm. “_Addāniqa_,” he begged. “_Magana!_”

Aziraphale spoke in kind, too fast to make out but undoubtedly in the _Akkadu _they’d spoken when the world was so close to new. He thrust, paused, let his hips move again, and Crowley matched him push for push. So close – just a little more – with the last of his strength, Crowley twisted his head down to Aziraphale’s neck and bit down hard.

Aziraphale outright _screamed _and flooded the space between them, and the blink of an eye later, Crowley was powerless to do anything but the same.

The sound of their tandem breathing echoed in the bedroom. Crowley matched his exhausted breath to the regular rise and fall of Aziraphale’s chest. “Crowley,” Aziraphale finally said hesitantly, “I do – I do need to say something.”

Dread rose like bile in Crowley’s throat. “Yeah?”

A sigh from Aziraphale shook them both. “Yes. It’s nothing bad, but Crowley…when you’re feeling these things, you must tell me right off. How much longer might we both have gone without…well, without _this _if I’d not checked in? You might have driven yourself mad with the hurt. I can’t have you doing that to yourself.”

Crowley fought the urge to squirm under the covers as a massive snake. No, he would be mature about this, bless it. “I didn’t want you to, uh. Drop me. I’d’ve rather not done this ever than lost you as a friend.”

Aziraphale kissed him gently, one hand on his cheek. “I understand,” he said. “At least I think I do. You love me, and you want to keep me.” He chuckled. “I suppose I can add ‘the most loving person I know’ to your list of attributes.”

Crowley whimpered. “You don’t even mind – that? Me needing, you know.” He shrugged against the bed as much as he could. “Needing to hear that.”

“No, of course not.” Aziraphale shifted, grimaced, and miracled a wet handkerchief. “May I clean us up, my lovely?”

“Mm-hm.” Crowley let his eyes fall shut again as Aziraphale tended to him. The cool water felt nice on his hot, sensitive skin. “I’ll try. Try to tell you, I mean,” he elaborated after a moment. “But you…”

Aziraphale’s eyes flicked up to meet his. “Yes?”

“You tell me, too. If you need something. I want to _share_ with you, angel. Like…” He cast around for something. “The knitting group! I know they’d love to meet you.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale demurred, “I’m sure they wouldn’t. I’m hardly skilled enough for all that.”

“Neither am I,” Crowley said. “They’d love you because you’re my…um, you’re…my…” Every word that came to mind seemed either too presumptuous or not quite enough.

“Yours,” Aziraphale said, cutting him off with a gentle smile and a touch to his hand. “I’m yours.”

There. That was enough.

* * *

[1] So he thought in too many metaphors when he was agitated. What of it?

[2] Possibly literal radar, too, considering all the security cameras these days.

[3] He now also owned three phone numbers.

[4] He’d mostly blocked those nights out of his head. Demons were funny, but everyone was a fucking critic up here.

[5] Mostly death metal, because you can take the demon out of Hell, but you can’t take Hell – all of it, at least – out of the demon.

[6] Heckling had always been excellent demonic self-care.

[7] Reproduced here: “Your mother’s so fucked in the head, she made demons!” Not his best work.

[8] Outside, an 80-year-old man from California wondered if he’d felt an earthquake or if it was just the incipient Alzheimer’s creep he’d been warned about.

[9] Or leave him standing, as it were.

[10] He wasn’t ignorant of the configuration Aziraphale had revealed when he took off his kit.

[11] If you looked closely, you would be able to see that the ‘a’ in ‘Heavenly’ was topped with a tiny halo, and that the ‘t’ in ‘Nectar’ had tiny devil horns.

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary
> 
> Kemet: ancient Egyptians' name for their country, translated as "land of the fertile/black soil"  
_Khamsin_: fifty days of wind, part of the dry season in the Middle East  
_Addāniqa_: please (Akkadian)  
_Magana_: please/now (Akkadian) 
> 
> I can be found at godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr, where I'm currently on a massive Good Omens bender. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are to this author as food is to Aziraphale and...well, also to this author. 
> 
> "The Author Needs Therapy" is not a tag, but it should be.


End file.
